By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK, Jan 30 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Monday said
the names of two people who helped guarantee bail for indicted
FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried should be
made public, but put his ruling on hold pending an expected
appeal.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan ruled in favor
of several media outlets including Reuters that sought the
names.
The judge said that while the public had only a "weak" right
to know who Bankman-Fried's guarantors were, it outweighed
Bankman-Fried's arguments for confidentiality, including that
the guarantors' safety could be imperiled.
Kaplan also said the names will remain under seal until at
least Feb. 7, because "the question presented here is novel and
an appeal is likely."
A spokesman for Mark Cohen and Christian Everdell, who
represent Bankman-Fried, declined to comment.
Bankman-Fried, 30, has been confined at his parents' home in
California, after pleading not guilty to fraud for allegedly
looting billions of FTX customer dollars.
His parents, both professors at Stanford Law School, had
co-signed a $250 million bond for their son, with two other
guarantors required to sign $500,000 and $200,000 bonds.
Bankman-Fried's lawyers said the parents had been harassed
and received physical threats since FTX's November collapse and
bankruptcy, and there was "serious cause for concern" the
additional guarantors might suffer similar treatment.
Kaplan disagreed, noting that long before bail was posted,
the parents had faced "intense public scrutiny" over their
relationship with their son, who was once worth an estimated $26
billion.
"The amounts of the individual bonds--$500,000 and
$200,000--do not suggest that the non-parental sureties are
persons of great wealth or likely to attract attention of the
types and volume of that to which defendant's parents appear to
have been subjected," Kaplan wrote.
Media outlets distinguished the case from another judge's
decision not to reveal who guaranteed a bond for Jeffrey
Epstein's longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
They said there was less "stigma" from being associated with
Bankman-Fried than from being associated with the late sex
offender. Maxwell was later convicted.
Other media seeking to identify Bankman-Fried's guarantors
included the Associated Press, Bloomberg, CNBC, CoinDesk, Dow
Jones, the Financial Times, Insider, the New York Times and the
Washington Post.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David
Gregorio)
Messaging: jon.stempel.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
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